


Help Wanted

by Psilent (HereThereBeFic)



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/Psilent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honestly, Matt wasn’t exactly sure why the page came up on his computer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **ETA 2015, copypasted to all SPG stories:** I just want to note that this was written before Bunny's announcement about Rabbit's gender, hence all the incorrect "he" pronouns and etc. No disrespect meant to Bunny or her character.
> 
> I have considered going through all of my old SPG stuff and switching the pronouns and other relevant details but I am (for unrelated reasons) no longer a part of the SPG fandom and don't really know what's going on with the lore, whether Rabbit's pronouns etc were retconned vs if she canonically transitioned, and I would find it very emotionally taxing to go searching for the relevant answers and then comb through my old works to fix all the details in a way that makes sense. Tbh I kind of hope no one is still _finding_ any of these stories, and I'm mostly leaving them up in case any of them happen to be somebody's old favorite or something.

Honestly, Matt wasn’t exactly sure why the page came up on his computer.

And once he started reading it, he wasn’t exactly sure the page - or the website it was on - actually  _existed_. It didn’t look like it was supposed to.

He’d gotten up to get a drink, and when he’d come back his screen was all sickening neon and comic sans.

He scrolled to the top of the page, wincing as sidebars and other components jumped to rearrange themselves, and clicked what looked like a heading. It opened in a new tab.

He squinted at the screen and turned down the brightness, which helped a bit with the blinding colors but not with the overall readability.

As far as he could tell, the website was called either Your Ads Here Pending Background Check (Waivable For Reasonable Fee) or youradsherepending.buildyourcustomsitewithstyle.com/93782803e7. The designer seemed to be confused about what a page header was and wasn’t, and what was supposed to go in one once you’d found it.

He clicked around, growing equal parts more horrified and amused with every unexpected cursor animation and thinly veiled proposition. The whole website looked like Craigslist and Geocities had had a baby and left it with Auntie Angelfire on the weekends.

At least there was no autoplay.

Eventually, he shook himself out of his Adobe-Flash-induced stupor and realized he had something in the neighborhood of fifteen tabs open. He closed them all except the original one, deciding he would give it a quick read-through and then be done with the internet for the day. He didn’t remember going to this website, and he didn’t remember what he’d been doing before he’d gone to it. That was usually a sign that he needed a break.

——

_**GREETERINGS from all of us here at WALTER ROBOTICS** _

_**Do you like:** _

  * _**Adventures**_
  * _**Science**_
  * _**Music**_
  * _**Robots**_
  * _**The thrill of knowing that a spacial-temporal anomaly could open up right beneath your feet at any second**_



_**?** _

_**Then you might be just the probably human person in good health between the ages of 18 and 30 living in or around the San Diego, CA, USA area with few personal connections, vague-at-best long-term life goals, unusually high propensity for risk-taking, and no family history of heart disease or high or low blood pressure we’re looking for!** _

_**Benefits include:** _

  * _**Adventure!**_
  * _**Science!**_
  * _**Basically the previous list!**_
  * _**A healthcare plan!***_



_**Inquire about the position weekdays between 3 and 6 pm at Walter Manor. The huge mansion without a front door. Behind the gate. You know the one. Everybody knows the one. The windows glow blue.** _

_***Walter Robotics healthcare plan not mandatory, but be advised that the acceptance of a contract with Walter Robotics, as decreed by the state of California, indicates that the signee forfeits any and all rights under the current healthcare of the state, and as such no California-based doctors, clinics, etc. outside of those officially affiliated with Walter Robotics and the Walter Robotics healthcare plan are legally obligated to treat, diagnose, medicate, or otherwise assist the signee in any way, and in fact in some cases may be forbidden to do so.** _

——

Matt blinked at his screen. Twice. Once because the searing green text against the blue-and-red-checkered background was beginning to make his eyes water, and once involuntarily as a sort of signal from his brain to the rest of his body to please give it a minute to digest what he’d just read.

He shut his laptop.

Checked his phone.

Realized it was four in the afternoon in the middle of the week and he had nowhere to be, nothing to do, and nobody to nag at him for not using the time to finish unpacking or go out and apply at every business, music hall, and fast food place he could find.

He leaned back in his chair and rolled across the carpet to the edge of the rug, where it always caught, swiveling absent-mindedly as he stared up at the ceiling and thought that he didn’t have anywhere to be at four in the afternoon  _tomorrow_ , either.

And he  _had_  passed a rather strange house on his way into town.


	2. Chapter 2

Matt got out of the taxi at 5:46 pm, paid the driver, and dashed through the open gate, hardly pausing to spare the Manor itself more than a passing glance.

He’d left his apartment at half past three, but it had taken nearly two hours to find a cab driver willing to let him into the car after hearing his intended destination.

Unsure of the exact protocol when seeking entrance to a house with no front door, he hesitated for a moment and then knocked on the wall.

Immediately, a mechanical hand snaked around the doorway, grabbed his arm, and yanked him inside.

For a moment, he thought they’d put a bag over his head. Then he realized it was just incredibly dark. _Impossibly_  dark, considering the relative light outside and the not at all relative lack of door.

“For the record,” said a voice that was, presumably, attached to the hand. “This was not my idea. They wanted scary, but not deadly, and I’m the only non-human who can be trusted not to accidentally rip a limb off doing this.”

“… _What_?”

“You’ll see.”

Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He was led from the tile floor down what felt like a carpeted hallway, and ushered through a doorway he only knew was there because he half walked into it.

“Sorry,” muttered the voice. “My eyes glow, so they made me close them. It’s all a little ridiculous.”

“Uh.”

“Most of the other applicants were back out the door by this point. You’re doing well.”

Matt wondered if that was actually a good thing. He stammered out a thank-you as the hand guided him to sit in a hard-backed chair.

It occurred to him that he should probably be a lot more alarmed than he currently was, having apparently just been kidnapped by a robot.

Then again, the robot had mentioned other applicants, so presumably he  _was_  actually here to be interviewed for a job. Maybe this was some sort of strange hazing ritual. An annoying and kind of creepy one, but, then, weren’t most of them? And Matt  _needed_  a job. He could deal with annoying and creepy.

Suddenly, something -  _moved._  Something that sounded disconcertingly like it was coming from within the chair. And then -

No, no, no. Nope.

 _Ropes_. Around his wrists. And his ankles. No.

“Woah, woah - uh - what - look, I - I draw the line at… whatever  _this…_  is.”

“It’s only for your safety, I assure you,” said the voice. “The last couple of people fell out of the chair.”

Matt gulped. “…Wh-why?”

“‘CAUSE’A  _ME_!” screeched a new voice, right next to his ear.

Matt yelped and instinctively rocked forward, away from the sound, and would indeed have probably hit the floor if not for the ropes. “Wha- What the hell is happening?! I came here for a job interview!”

“All part’a the pro-process, sonny,” said the new voice, having moved with much clanking across the room.

“Process?” Matt squeaked, pulling at the restraints.

“Gotta weed out the weak ones. And the jumpy ones.”

“Uh. What - what qualifies someone as weak? Or… jumpy?”

“Well one guy fainted. And one girl tried to punch me. Unfortunately for her, she had pretty good aim, an’ we can’t exac-actly hire a new drummer with a broken hand.”

“To be fair, Rabbit,” the first voice cut in, “she _was_  the one we knew was a fan of Orwell, and you did scream YOU ARE THE DEAD in her ear.”

“The Spiii-iiiine,” Rabbit whined. “He’s not sposed to know our names yet! …Fehhh. Fine. Might as well get rid of the dark, too, then.”

Matt held his breath and shut his eyes, bracing himself for sudden light. Instead, there was a noise like a vacuum cleaner, and when he cautiously squinted one eye open he saw that the room was slowly becoming brighter and brighter.

Or, rather, less and less dark. The fact that there was a distinction and that he could tell it was there was oddly terrifying, under the circumstances.

He was glad he hadn’t touched an Orwell book since high school.

He let out a short, calm breath.  _“Look._  I’m a musician. I play the drums, the piano, and the trombone. I don’t have a car, but I can find a way to get wherever you need me to be. Do I have a job or don’t I? Because if I don’t, I really need to get -“  _out of here_ _ **GET ME OUT OF HERE**_  ”- back to looking for one.”

There. That hadn’t sounded panicked at all. He took another breath and tried to look The Spine in the face. This was a mistake, as he had yet to actually take a good  _look_  at The Spine - or at Rabbit. He’d seen  _posters_ , of course, but somehow that didn’t quite amount to the same thing as actually being in the same  _room_  as two metal men - staring at the line clearly cut between careful gleaming maintenence and casual oxidation, hearing the creaks as Rabbit moved and the hisses of steam when The Spine cocked his head.

Matt bit his tongue and tried not to pull at the ropes again.

“It’s not that simple, Mister, uh…?” The Spine paused politely.

“Smith,” said Matt, because when your name was Matt Smith, it really wasn’t worth the effort of trying to come up with a fake one on the spot, no matter the circumstances. “Matt Smith.”

“Ah,” said The Spine. “The one who just moved to San Diego. We were wondering if you were going to show.”

“The cabs wouldn’t - how do you know that?”

“That’s something Peter Walter VI should explain. You’ll meet him soon,” said The Spine, with a smile that Matt thought was probably supposed to be kindly. Maybe it would have been, if not for the ropes.

“ _Maybe_ ,” Rabbit added, and his smile was nothing but a deliberate display of _teeth_. “If you get that far.”

“Rabbit,” The Spine said irritably. “We aren’t expecting many more applicants. Stop trying to scare him off.”

“Thaaaat’s the whole  _point_!” Rabbit protested.

“Well stop trying so  _hard_!”

“Ex-cuse me,” came a new voice, like a primitive text-to-speech program, and another robot stuck his bespectacled head around the door. “Pe-ter Six would like to know where the dark went.”


End file.
